Monday, August 9, 2010

Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ) was one we knew that there was going to be a massive volume spike in today when it came to the stock.Â Rather than almost 20 million shares in a day, we have seen over 108 million shares trade hands.Â The stock is lower by 6.7% at $42.90 after hitting 52-week lows in the Friday evening after-hours session.

What is also standing out is major put and call option trading.Â Â It is not even NOON EST yet and we have seen over 30,000 CALLS in AUG-2010 and over 20,000 PUTS in AUG-2010 trade hands.Â For September-2010 we have also just gone above the 30,000 contract mark for the CALLS and over 23,000 contracts trade in the PUTS.

So far the trading in the JAN-2011 options have seen much more trading volume in the PUTS versus the CALLS: over 12,000 PUTS versus only about 6,000 CALLS.

Superior Well Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: SWSI) rocketed up at 8:35 AM EST 20.84%, resulting in shares increasing from $18.23 to $20.03.Â This move is the result of Superior Wellâs purchase by land rig contractor Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE: NBR) for approximately $900 million.Â The morning has thus seen the movement of 2,964,810 shares, compared with Superior Wellâs average volume of 547,172 shares.Â The companyâs success can also be measured with attention to its 52-week trading range, which currently stands at $5.66 â" $19.96.

The pressure pumping company also just posted Q2 profits of $0.18 a share, totalling $6.1 million.Â This is compared with analyst expectations, which predicted a loss of $0.10 per share.